Some ideas about a healthy diet

The suggestion doctors used to give patients about getting rid of all the fat to lose weight and have a healthy heart is not accurate. Studies could prove that people who have the Mediterranean diet with more extra-virgin olive oil lost more unwanted pounds.

Actually, it is so easy to find the Mediterranean diet in the grocery store. There are so many foods that contain nutrients that are identified to boost longevity and have so many health benefits that are supported by numerous scientific studies.

You do not have to fear fat in food anymore, at least if it comes from extra-virgin olive oil and other items.

Fat is really back and a new research shows it.

A new study published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology’s new edition does not give you the license to chow down on a cake or have another dessert. However, it gives you the right to have an egg for breakfast if you fry it in olive oil, instead of butter, and abstain from the toasted white bread and bacon.

Another study finds that high-fat Mediterranean diet does not actually cause weight gain. Researchers discovered that individuals whose diets were abundant in nuts and olive oil lost more weight than those who have the low-fat regime. A major study found the same results.

Fear of fat or pocrescophobia is misplaced, and the dietary guidelines that limit it in our diets are erroneous. This is the statement coming from the Spanish researchers who have studied over 7,000 individuals. Some of the participants consume 50ml of extra virgin olive oil or 30 grams of nuts daily, while others were following a standard low-fat diet.

The Spanish researchers are confidently saying that we should put healthy fats back on the menu. The fats in your diet must come from fish and vegetables. This new findings and guidelines will definitely change the way we eat and our eating attitudes.

The Predimed published the results of their randomized controlled trial on fats and weight loss. The Mediterranean diet in this study, even with high in fats does not contain butter or red meat. The participants only ate whole grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. The trial excluded foods and beverages that have been linked with long-term weight gain, such as butter, fast foods, red and processed meats, sweets, and sugar-sweetened beverages.

The participants were divided into three groups. The first group consumed an unlimited calorie Mediterranean diet with an increased amount of extra virgin olive oil, while the second group consumed an unlimited diet with extra nuts. The last group has a low-fat diet and given small non-food items every quarter, such as spoons and forks.

Over 90% of those who participated, ages ranging from 55 to 80 were overweight or obese. In addition, weight loss was not sizable but was best in the Mediterranean diet with olive oil group. The group lost 0.88kg compared with 0.60kg on the low-fat diet. All the participants experienced an increased on their waistlines, which likely to happen as people age. The smallest increase was among those who participated belonging to the nuts group, which is 0.37cm compared. The fat diminisher group has 1.2cm waist measurement increased.

Based on these results, the Barcelona-based researchers propose that the Mediterranean diet should be modified. More healthy fats should be added because of their health benefits, which include reducing the risks of cancer and heart disease.

The idea that eating fat will make people overweight because it is high in calories started four decades ago. This led to mass sales of fat-free and low-fat foods and beverages in the supermarkets. Sadly, this belief and practice only contributed to the alarming obesity epidemic, as food and beverage manufacturers used sugar and other carbohydrates to replace fat in everything from yoghurts, to kinds of milks to ready meals.

A doctor from the Spanish Biomedical Research Centre in Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition at the University of Barcelona named Ramon Estruch, said that over four decades of nutritional policy has believed and promoted the low-fat diet, but there is only a small impact on the increasing levels of obesity.

Their study illustrates that a Mediterranean diet loaded with nuts and vegetable fats like olive oil had minimal effect on waist circumference or body weight compared with people that are following a low-fat diet. The findings absolutely do not entail that unrestricted diet with high levels of harmful fats like processed meat, fast foods, butter, desserts and sweetened beverages are valuable.

Overweight and obesity are putting millions of people at risk of cancers, diabetes, strokes and heart disease. These are truly global concerns of today. The classic suggestion for losing weight is to follow a low-fat diet according to the researchers, while the World Health Organization and other health-related bodies advocate that fat should make up no more than 30 percent of our diet.

Another great thing about the Mediterranean diet is it helps stop breast cancer from recurring.

Prof Dariush Mozaffarian writes that the dietary guidelines should be amended to bury the obsolete, arbitrary confines on total consumption. Dr. Mozaffarian is an American cardiologist and epidemiologist. He is currently the dean of the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

He added that calorie-obsessed warnings about healthier, higher-fat options like yoghurt, nuts, phenolic-rich vegetable oils, and some cheese varieties, must also be dropped. The world should discard the allegory that lower calorie, lower-fat product leads to lesser weight gain.

Dr. Mozaffarian emphasized the need for us to focus on the quality of the food we eat rather than the calorie content on the restaurant menus. It is absurd to forbid whole milk, but tolerate sugar-sweetened, fat-free milk.

We cannot simply use the fat contents of foods and diets as a measurement to judge long-term benefits and dangers. It should be in our awareness that the total caloric contents and energy density can be equally deceptive. To a certain extent, the up-to-date scientific evidence backs the emphasis on eating more calories coming from beans, vegetable oils, nuts, fruits, yoghurt, some whole grains and fish. Calories from highly processed foods loaded with salt, starch, trans-fat and sugar. Unfortunately, the world tends to ignore these pieces of evidence – including the findings from the Predimed trial. Sorry to say, it is at our own risk.

The Vice President for Policy of the Faculty of Public Health Prof Simon Capewell says that there is a need to promote a Mediterranean diet with nuts and olive oil. We should also reduce our meat intake, refined carbohydrates, animal fats, junk food and sugary beverages.